Saturday, December 05, 2015

I once met a man so alone so poor that he had never read a book and even if he wanted to he couldn’t because he never learn to read or write not because he was poor but because he was lazy because after all even poor people can go to school, dressed in rags, for school is free.

ONCE ii

I once met a man so alone so poor that he was blind and couldn’t see a thing and he was always saying OUCH when he ran into things all over his little shanty hovel.

Of course you don’t have to be poor to be blind but it does help if you want to be blind and hurt your toes if you are quite poor rather than quite rich because you don’t have servants to say things like “Mind your toes” and serve you cucumber sandwiches with a sprig of fresh dill and also if you are not rich there is the matter of the broken beer bottles on the dirt floor and the starving dogs growling.

ONCE iii

I once met a man so rich that he said “Hey you! Do this!” and “Hey you! Do that!” and everybody did everything he barked out to them including women to whom he would often say things like “Hey you! Take off your brassiere!” and they did but not because he was rich but because he could control minds because he was rich and he could afford the mind control lessons which are very expensive and he never gave it a second thought in terms of the extravagance of it all.

ONCE iv

I once met a man so rich that all he bought were new release hardbacks with their slick dust jackets and he would stuff them with dollar bills and bullion and light a match to them and the books would explode into flames and then the flames would lick the persian rugs and antiques and fireplaces and walls and the conservatory and eventually the whole house burned down including the billiard room and parlor and everything was gone but the bullion because gold doesn’t burn but it does become quite smoky and then it smells like bacon.

The seats are so plush and fat that you could fall asleep on them if they weren’t red which is the color of blood and communism and war and red lights and tired eyes and Mars and basilisks and chili peppers and Red Bull and Scarlett O’Hara’s mourning dress and tomorrow.

Filming a terrified child on a roller coaster is a seasonal event. If you look at the background rather than the screaming child, you will usually see bright blue skies with fluffy white clouds and trees filled with green leaves, which would indicate summer rather than autumn or winter. Further in the background, you can see children and adults holding ice cream cones, balloons, and Fudgsicles which would further indicate summer months. Below the child, who is terrified and wishes it would all end, you can see the roller coaster operator, whose chest is glistening with sweat, and who appears to be deep in thought. Perhaps his wife is at home, cooking him is favorite meal, which is pot roast. Perhaps he wonders if she is with another man. Will he buy a dog to keep him company if she leaves? If she leaves, will he stay? There is far less to do in the winter. Company can be soothing.

More screaming and bright, blue skies. Someone drops their Fudgsicle, and a dog licks it up. Oh, it’s terrible.

It’s a shame that authors do not have sufficient time to write a different ending for each copy of the book they write. It would be fun to get together and discuss a book that everybody has read, and everyone disagrees about, because after all, it didn’t end that way. Yes it did. No it didn’t.

I would like to listen to every song you ever loved, starting with the stuff that you listened to before you were born, when your mother was at the beach, and her toes were in the ocean water, and is was beautiful and sunny out and it was the perfect weather for a glass of lemonade and a transistor radio and but not too loud you will wake the baby.

Imagine you were born in 1856, and your mother, whom you loved dearly, named you Oz. All is well and good for a nice long while until L. Frank Baum comes along and writes his book, The Wizard of Oz. Of course you curse his name, even though you have never met him, which is not really fair. He was a nice man after all and he meant you no harm. He loved his wife, and he predicted augmented reality and laptops. But it is unbearable, until

You change your name to L. It’s a beautiful name with a nice ring to it and now you are secretly safe and almost famous. Your life will continue apace, and you will do wonderful things, like read books. You now can read your brother’s books.

In this hotel sits the piano of Cole Porter. You can look at it but you cannot touch it. You can take a picture of the cigarette burns but cannot touch them, either. This is something I don’t understand. Cole Porter is gone, and the piano used to be an elephant. If you are really old, you might have even touched this very elephant. You might have even touched Cole Porter. He was a lovely man. And he certainly seemed like a top-notch elephant. Who knows? You might have even touched both. And one might have said, “Cut it out!”, and then the other might have said "Ditto!"